It is known that acetylenically unsaturated compounds may be carbonylated in the presence of an alcohol or water to yield alpha-beta-olefinically unsaturated esters or acids, respectively. However, the known processes have low selectivities to such esters or acids, which render them rather unattractive for use on a technical scale.
It has now been found that in the carbonylation of acetylenically unsaturated compounds the selectivity to alpha-beta-olefinically unsaturated esters or acids is strongly increased and in many cases the reaction rate much enhanced by carrying out the reaction in the presence of a special catalytic system.